Steps To Grow Chinese Cabbage

What is Chinese cabbage? Chinese cabbage (Brassica pekinensis) is an oriental vegetable that is used a lot in sandwiches and salads instead of lettuce. The leaves are tender like lettuce even though it is a cabbage. Unlike regular cabbage, the thick veins in the leaves are actually sweet and tender. Growing Chinese cabbage is a great addition to any vegetable garden.

Steps to Grow Chinese Cabbage

When considering planting Chinese cabbage, you have to remember that you can grow an early winter or mid-winter crop or a spring crop. Just don’t plant your cabbage too late or the plants send up flower stalks before making heads, which robs the plant of nutrients.

One of the steps to grow Chinese cabbage is to prepare the soil. Planting Chinese cabbage requires heavy soil that holds moisture. You do not want the soil too wet, however, because it can rot the cabbage. To keep your Chinese cabbage growing well during the growing season, you should make sure to fertilize the soil before planting. Also, helping to keep your Chinese cabbage growing is making sure they get enough water, but not too much, throughout the season.

Planting Chinese cabbage can be done in late August through October for an early winter or mid-winter crop, or in January for a spring crop. It all depends on when you want your cabbage to be harvested. When you plant in January, you want to plant your growing Chinese cabbage where it is protected from dangers of cold, ice and frost as it matures.

Growing Chinese cabbage is done best when the plants are 10 inches apart. This gives smaller heads great for home use. For home use, you want two to three pound heads, so plant them in double rows so it keeps the size of the heads smaller.

If you plant from seed, be sure to put the seeds one quarter to one half inch deep and three inches apart. When the growing Chinese cabbage is four to five inches tall, you can thin the plants to about 10 inches apart.

When you harvest Chinese cabbage, be sure to pick Chinese cabbage growing from the first planting you started, if you have staggered plantings for continuous crops.

Take the heads and clean them of browning or bug damaged leaves on the outside, and wrap them in plastic firmly so they keep in the refrigerator for several weeks. Chinese cabbage is a great vegetable to include in all your salads.